(PARIS) — A boat carrying migrants ripped apart in the English Channel as they attempted to reach Britain from northern France on Tuesday, plunging dozens into the treacherous waterway and leaving 13 dead, officials said.
“Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open,” said Olivier Barbarin, mayor of Le Portel near the fishing port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where a first aid post was set up to treat victims. “It’s a big drama.”
He said 13 migrants were killed, a toll confirmed by a maritime rescue official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the operation.
“If people don’t know how to swim in the agitated waters … it can go very quickly,” the mayor said.
Lt. Etienne Baggio, a spokesman for the French maritime prefecture that oversees that stretch of sea, said “more than 10” people were dead after the boat broke up but he didn’t have an exact number.
The officials said rescuers recovered 61 people from the waters. The prefecture said the boat got into difficulty off Gris-Nez point between Boulogne-sur-Mer and the port of Calais further north.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he was heading to the scene of what he described as the “terrible shipwreck.” He said 12 people died and two were missing, a count he said was provisional.
Sea temperatures off northern France were around 20 degrees C, or about 68 F.
At least 30 migrants have died or gone missing while trying to cross to the U.K. this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. That figure doesn’t include the latest deaths.
At least 2,109 migrants have tried to cross the English Channel on small boats in the past seven days, according to U.K. Home Office data updated Tuesday. The data includes people found in the channel or on arrival.
Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rule s, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants have been pushing them north.
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Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.